You thread-ninjaed me, had to delete my alternate OP. (You forgot the quotes around the title, BTW, and I think you also forgot the link on the image. (edit: Or not. Maybe I mis-tapped, first time.) Quickly correct it, before it gets corrected for you?) My own follow-on comment was: If we make the r...

Specifying one implies a certain, um, dearth of the other. Without quite the same sparseness of words, there are ways round here of indicating that it's a bright winter morning, i.e. the temperature is going to need gloves, your ears will feel nipped and the vapour of your breath will be visible. T...

Just (so far) having read the Introductory summary, and not gotten to the diagrams, I would have to say that I agree with the precis. (Not that I claim authority to bunk/debunk that kind of thing! It just meshes well with my own ideas.) I hadn't gotten quite so far as to think about establishing...

Despite having just pontificated about various forms of cycling (in the Meterologist comic thread) I agree about certain "bicyclists", "bikers" and "men (or women) on bikes". I've cycled since I was old enough to ride my own (very small) bike, and also technically befor...

There's an additional reason to have mudguards (and full ones, not just those token 'back saver' ones) if you ride on roads in company with other cyclists, in that the water/road-mud that does handily fling itself generally rearwards, rather than hang on for just long enough to lose its increasingly...

A cylinder is Euclidean. But a 'straight cylinder' has an axis that does not wrap around, either falling off the un-wrapping edges or continuing along its infinite extent. (It could be Euclideanally toroidal, as per the Asteroids universe, of course.) Yet upon the surface of the cylinder (featurele...

If you actually have a wrap-around universe, you could have a spaceship pass the Earth (or the Earth pass the spaceship) at relativistic speeds and either/both travel towards the wrap-around boundary (as defined against any arbitrary stationary FoR) and remeet with neither having accelerated to con...

I remember, when very young, trying to work out whether walking or running in the rain would get me wetter. Walk and (barring wind) it only falls down onto my head but it does it a lot. Run, and I'm under the rain less, but I'm also running headlong into more raindrops. I didn't realise it at the ti...

(It's hard to keep commitment up when your battery is in single figures. Back to 100% now, though. Not that I'm going to keep up with the big guns in this thread, even if I sabotage their batteries for a while.)

(I had refrained from saying anything before, as I've watched this thread evolving, but I don't feel quite so bad for my "FAO explainxkcd" thread now. Still broken over there, I see, but they're in good company given the wide spread of this lack of upgrade. Could almost be imagined a DoS t...

Try mentioning the need for gun control on twitter. People you've never heard of will try to dismiss any argument you make and start making personal comments about you. You could even say that you have been surrounded by assholes. Doesn't make them the sane ones. The people on Twitter really cover ...

The British institution that is The Shipping Forecast is a precision thing, yet artful (it has inspired parody, poetry and music galore - go searching if you wish) in its 350/380 word constraints. The standard glossary doesn't cover percentage chances, especially not as much as the comic does (accum...

As a non-homeowner/renter, I'm either living in a prefurnished place, or when not, have gotten very good at the craigslist shuffle. I can fill a place with furniture in a couple days, then turn it all back over just as fast when I move out, for about the same price. So yes, I do technically own tha...

Though they only had LED bulbs (nothing else, and none of them dimmable, still on the shelving units that also had prices attached to them), my attempts to help Maplin out in their closing down sale (not sure if their online side will survive the process of going into Administration, but I'll miss t...

And what's with the new dimmer switches? They don't have an actual "no current" position. What good is a switch that won't switch off? The (old) dimmer switch in this particular case is a rotary knob with a 'click'-bump from the fully off position into the rotation from lowest to full bri...

Given the lines are either horizontal or vertical, and you steadily fill the gaps between horizontals by vertical fractures and the gaps between the verticals by horizontal fractures, I'd say that taking a non-unitXunit ratio box and progressively filling it with similarly ratioed higher-order curve...

When I first read The Chronicles of Narnia, I had no idea what Turkish Delight was. My best guess that I used to picture the scene in my mind was slices of turkey covered in honey/ syrup. I have never actually had Turkish Delight. How does my version compare to realities? Depending on food combinat...

There is one thing separating us from the other primates, and I would like to maintain that. So, it's my fault that this one thing is not about the flinging of one's own poo, you say? I just hope you're quicker to duck next time we meet! Did you know that you can brush with two toothbrushes? It giv...

Am I the only person never to have heard of Bill Nye? Sounds a little bit like Johnny Ball (who was truly excellent). :| That's weird. I thought everyone had heard of Bill Nye. Go look for his stuff. It's awesome. (As we're necroed, I am now authorised to reply…) Over this side of the pond, we didn...

If you ever want to make a pound cake, guess how much of each ingredient you need? If you guessed 1lb, you're correct. Again, you can adjust the recipe to an approximate round number of grams, but you'll get a different size end product Has anyone baking a pound cake put huge significance on the re...

Swaziland is now eSwatini . At least until the commercial deal with Apple comes along and renames it again to iSwatini, I suppose. Plus: " In this instance, if thermonuclear war was breaking out in much of the world and the BBC had reported on it, it is likely the news would be mentioned on th...

I'm collecting names of people who would like to push to restore thorn, ash, wynn and yogh to the English alphabet. Is that to tout for votes/subscriptions, or to ensure they're the first ones up against the wall…? *whistles tunes from The Mikado* (ETA: a "cup" is not Imperial measure. Al...

and only half want to reverse it post brexit ... wait, what? Only about a half of us (who voted, about a third of us who could vote and maybe around a quarter of everyone who would have to live with the result) voted for Brexit, so 'just' half of everyone these lot asked wanting to work with pounds...